Saturday, January 15, 2011

A Good Week ... With A Wince

This week was fairly upbeat. The positive attitude that I've had since after Christmas continues.

After the good blood tests on Monday, along with the two snow days for the Wife, I decided to bake the brownies I received for Christmas. I deliberately baked them about an hour before the Wife got home so the house would smell yummy. It turned out she'd just had a great day at school and the brownies just made the day better. Surprisingly the 8" by 8" pan lasted three days, a day longer than I expected.

Since I was eating brownies, I had to find a way to work them off so I went for a city walk on Thursday. I walked 10.1 miles through Creighton University's compact but attractive campus, found a geocache in Bemis park, found another one in Prospect Hill Cemetery, and cursed all the people who hadn't shoveled their sidewalks on my way back to the car.

We had about eleven inches of snow earlier in the week. Looking for the geocache in the cemetery was not easy as none of the cemetery access roads had been cleared. I kind of wished I'd brought my snowshoes. By the time I walked to the middle of the pioneer cemetery I was sweating. Nothing like high-stepping your way through snow to burn off brownie residue. I found the cache easy enough but then I had to slog back through the snow. On top of that, I would say only about half of the people had cleared the snow from their sidewalks. This meant either more slogging or walking in the street. While I was in residential areas walking in the street was fine but, once I got to a major thoroughfare, I realized my life was in danger. I had to keep jumping back off the road into the snow to avoid oblivious drivers. I felt like reporting everyone to the city so they could all be fined (you are required to clear the snow off your sidewalks within 48 hours of the snow fall) but I suppressed this urge because I was feeling positive, damn it.

I have yet to figure how to dress on these winter walks. It was around 6°F when I started so I was all bundled up in thick layers. By the time I got to the car I was sweating and, taking off a layer resulted in me being cold. I guess I need many thinner layers instead of a few thick ones.

While most of my walking experience was positive, despite the unshoveled sidewalks, there was one thing that made me wince. On a power box I found some graffiti that said "Aim at the head." The A of Aim was an anarchist symbol (a messy A in a circle). I don't know if this was written before or after Tucson. Either way, it's disturbing.

P.S. I accidentally published the "Aim at the head" quote over RSS Thursday. I had typed it to remind myself to include it in my post and then accidentally hit Post instead of saving it as a draft. I hope I didn't freak anyone out. Sorry if I did.

4 comments:

Ah, the art of layering. Good luck mastering that one. I have yet to myself. All I know is the poly base layers from REI are pretty awesome... though I think they just changed them, so I'm no longer sure...

I dress in many thin layers, and it does work. You stay warm, but the sweat evaporates so you don't get chills. Although it is kinda cool to see steam rising from your body after sweating in a big coat. Not healthy at all, but very trippy.

I love that you have snowshoes!! And I'm so glad the brownies were delicious.